


Ode to Basketball

by thecarrotofshuutoku (merthur_at_221b)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Happy birthday midorima, Introspection, i love this kid so much and i also love long extended similies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthur_at_221b/pseuds/thecarrotofshuutoku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basketball and piano lessons aren't all that different, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ode to Basketball

Midorima works like clockwork. Sometimes, the metronome he often has accompanying him whilst playing piano will become a background noise to the his shots passing through a basketball hoop and pounding on the floor, nothing but a swish on the net as warning.

Sometimes, he thinks that piano and basketball aren’t all that different. An exciting game has its own tempo, swelling crescendos and breathtaking trills. The angry violin picks start to sound like squeaky shoes on a waxed floor, and buzzer beaters start showing up as the last note of a difficult piece.

Throughout all of this, the metronome ticks on, keeping things moving onward and upward. Time will not be stopped, not for an intercepted pass or a slipped finger. Time is not benevolent, but it is not to be treated as an ally.

Sometimes, the metronome, his guide, will imprison him and Midorima was be enslaved to the ticking time bomb. The after-practice practice, three pointer after three pointer. It is a constant. It is a consistent skill, one that will never fail on him, as long as he continues to work, work, work. He is proposing every day after practice, and God has and will continue to dispense when He is needed.

What started as a simple anchor, keeping him from drifting too far away, becomes a shortened leash, weighing him down. Midorima cannot escape, cannot leave. Tick, tick. 120 beats per minute.

Midorima does not mind being a prisoner to the timer of his soul, because it is all he has left, now.

Lately, Midorima has felt compelled to put a name on the music in his heart. “Ode to Basketball," is what he has decided on. About as unoriginal as it gets, but there is a reason Midorima never got any creativity awards in writing excersies.

The melody, it started our full and strong, swelling. The Generation of Miracles are the closest thing to a home and family Midorima has found in real people, ever. He can’t admit that out loud, as Kise would never let it die.

But this next page, it is a sad and lonely ballad. All the other sections have faded out slowly. The only instrument left is a piano. No one notices the soft bass drum in the back, refusing to give up and go out, but never challenging the other sections to rejoin.

Both the survivors accept their fate.

The transition section of the page is the worst, rawest part of the music. The pain is still fresh, and hope is still tinged in the air. In the end, its useless.

Because Akashi is gone. Aomine is gone. Kise is gone. Murasakibara is gone. Kuroko is gone. Nijimura is gone.

And still, that little drummer boy marches on.

Once the transition decresendos into a monotonous thrum, Midorima learns ro accomodate. The metronome continues to tick, tick.

Until Shuutoku happens.

This team, his amazing senapis, the coach who grants him one selfish wish a day, and even Takao, the boy with the smile like what winning first in a piano competition feels like. They all take him in, and slowly but surely chip and wear away at these chains of a music staff.

No longer is he the trapped treble and bass clef of these short and heavy staffs. He is the notes on the page, brought to life by existance, and given another dimension when other people treat him right. "Ode to Basketball,” is still the name of this piece, but the next page of the music is no longer a lonely piano solo- it is a full piece, with the winds flitting up where no one else can reach, and deep brass section thumping like a well paced dribble, keeping in time. The timpani sounds like the count down of the fourth quarter of a game. The little drummer boy cannot be heard clearly, but the pure happiness of the percussion section can only be attributed to one person, of course.

But since when does percussion get any credit, anyway?

This arc of the music is subtitled “Teamwork,” and Midorima has never been so happy for such an abrupt change of key.


End file.
